Member of PACE urges action in response to Lukashenka’s election fraud allegation

28 àâãóñòà 2009, 17:11

A Dutch member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has urged the Council’s Committee of Ministers to take action following Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s statement that the 2006 presidential election was rigged.

The Committee should ask the Belarusian authorities to publish all relevant documents of the election: the actual results, the published results and the executive orders to change the outcome of the elections, Pieter Omtzigt, who is a Christian Democratic MP in the Dutch parliament, told BelaPAN.

In an interview published by Russia’s newspaper Izvestia on August 27, the Belarusian leader reiterated that the true margin of his victory was unbelievable and had to be lowered.

"Ninety-three percent voted for me in the last election," Mr. Lukashenka told the paper. "I then admitted when coming under pressure that we had falsified the election results. I said bluntly, "Yes, we falsified them." I ordered that the 93 percent should be replaced with something around 80 percent (I don’t remember exactly how much). Because it is psychologically hard to accept a percent higher than 90."

"Many observers stated that theose elections were not free and fair and now the president himself admits to vote rigging," Mr. Omtzigt said.

The lawmaker sent questions to the Committee of Ministers, suggesting that it should ask its chairman to raise the issue and request the Belarusian authorities to publish all documents concerning the results of the poll, as well as call on the Belarusian leader to publish "the documentation concerning the decision making process on the final electoral outcome and the officially validated result of the 2006 presidential elections."

"Elections should be free and fair and the counting process and publication of results should be fully transparent," Mr. Omtzigt said. "The central electoral committee should verify and officially validate the final outcome of the presidential election."

"The Council of Europe has opened a dialogue with the Belarus authorities. In this dialogue, the Council of Europe should uphold the values of democracy and the rule of law," he noted.